I was born July 19th, 1956 to Erma Cray McDonald. Erma was divorced with only an 8th grade education. I was her 6th child and first girl after 5 boys. Erma had desperately wanted a girl!! To make matters worse, 3 of the 5 boys were mildly to severely retarded and my brother Bryan was retarded and autistic. My sister Pat was born about 2 yrs later, and shortly after her Amy was born. While Erma was in the hospital having Amy, there was a terrible accident and my brother David fell from a second story window and suffered brain damage. The authorities came in to investigate, and Amy was put into a foster home. Almost immediately, myself, Pat, and Bryan, that I know of, were put into an institution for the retarded and disabled called Pineland. My mother was sent to a reformatory where she spent several years. My brothers have Fragile X retardation and Erma was a carrier, which makes her what is called “dull- normal”.

Erma had left all of us in the care of my then 14 yr old brother Charlie. Imagine how he felt when one day his whole family exploded and was gone? I don’t know how long we were at Pineland, it couldn’t have been too long. Eventually, because I asked a million questions and was adorably cute, they realized Pat and I were normal, so they took us from Pineland and put us in a boarding home with a witch of a woman we called Aunt Harriet. I remember being berated, and abused by her until one day she demanded that I take a huge pile of towels down some stairs. I was 3 yrs old and protested that they were too heavy. She became furious and gave me a hard shove down the stairs and I fell and broke my arm! Thank God I never again saw her!!

The next thing I remember, my sister and I were moved in with the Dow family. The Dow family had two other Foster children and a son we called Buddy. Buddy was definitely a psycho! He tormented and bullied us on a regular basis. It is hard to say how old he was, (when you are 4yrs old EVERYONE is old) but I would guess late teens or twenties. I remember relatives of the family “punishing ” me because they said I had lied and making me take hot pepper in my mouth. My sister and I had only lived there a short while when Buddy accused me of some infraction. He grabbed me and threw me up against a wall and punched me in the face. All day I bled into a towel until sometime after dark , I took the blood soaked towel to Mrs. Dow and crying, I apologized because I couldn’t make the bleeding stop! She took one look at me and terrified me by letting out the most blood curdling scream I had ever heard!! The next thing I know I was in a car racing to the local hospital. I don’t remember anything for weeks. Years later, I learned that Buddy had murdered another foster girl living in their care!! He shot her through the windshield of her car as she tried to escape from him! I am grateful he didn’t kill me, but judging from the lapse of time while I was in the hospital, I am guessing he nearly did kill me!! I was only 4 years old.

As a result of Buddyâ€™s assault, we were taken out of that home and we went to live with the Clark family. I just can’t understand how anyone would let a little girl who had twice been so abused as to require hospitalization, to go live with this family!! It amazes me! The mother was wonderful, but she was married to a huge , brute of a man, who had already terrorized her 3 sons. Why they would add two little girls, I just can’t imagine. He was cruel beyond description! He belittled, badgered and terrorized us daily, He told us constantly that we had come from â€œretards and wack jobs” and was utterly merciless. I often ran to the attic in sheer terror , when something as simple as not putting my hair in a pony tail infuriated him! I was not allowed long hair and my shoulder length hair was constantly pulled into a pony tail at his insistence. I was NEVER allowed to wear it down while I was at home and would take it down every morning when I got on the bus and put it back up when I came home. We were not allowed to speak at the dinner table and had to invent eye movements to get food. If we spoke we were slapped! I was accused of being a whore at 5 years old and one day was passed between him and my grandfather so the could check to see if I was a virgin. I was!

It was horrible and around the 7th grade when I started to become very beautiful, the man who had terrorized me, now wanted to kiss me with his disgusting no teeth mouth! He would make me sit on his lap and fondle me!! I was so terrified…I didn’t know what to do. He told me to go to my room and put on my pajamas on and he would meet me in my room!! I was beside myself and told my younger sister Pat what he wanted to do. Pat was so brave and helped me barricade the door, and helped me stay strong as he screamed demands outside the door!! This 6’4 giant roared outside but we wouldn’t let him in, at least not that night, he tried other nights and finally I told the mother. Around this time, she also caught him with her teenage niece. She decided to leave him!

In the mean time, I had always read my Bible. At six years old I actually read it from Genesis to Revelation! One day, I came home from school and the doors were open and the lights were on and no one was around, I mean NO ONE!! Mr. Clark would roar at me about not shutting off my light at night and become furious with me when I told him I had shut it off. Come to find out, years later in college, I would turn the light on in my sleep! So, this day, when I came home and the TV was on and the house lit up bright I couldn’t imagine where everyone was and what was going on. I was drawn like a magnet to the TV and there was a man on called Billy Graham. I stood transfixed in front of the TV and heard him tell me how much Jesus loved me and how He had died for me and the most important, that He loved me UNCONDITIONALLY!! I so wanted to be loved an unconditionally was almost more than I could fathom. I tried so hard to be a good girl, yet I was always abused and sent to a new home. I was in the process of joining our local Presbyterian church, ” because I wanted Him to know, I LOVED Him”!! When I heard Billy describe the Lord and tell me how to accept Jesus, I stood there with tears running down my face. I kept repeating over and over again, â€œThis is it! This is what I have been searching for.” Again and again I repeated it. â€œThis is it!â€ I took in every word! Soon, Mr. Clark came in and shut the TV off, but that night, I remember sitting on my bed and I did exactly what Billy Graham told me to do. I asked the Lord to forgive my sins and to come into my heart!! The next morning , the grass was greener and the sky bluer than I had ever seen it, and I had no clue what I had done! Jesus changed my life!! Somebody truly LOVED Pammie!! Shortly thereafter some kids at my school started to witness to me, and I excitedly told them that I had done that, I had asked Jesus in my heart! They asked me if I wanted to go to a Bible study. I was so excited! I had a million questions! See how faithful the Lord was? He put on the TV and got me saved then didn’t leave me there but led me to a Bible study?! I eventually started going to a Christian coffee house and was told by a local pastor that there was more!!1 I was ecstatic!! He told me about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit!! It was a good thing because my life was about to take a sad and dramatic new direction.

Several months after I told Ms. Clark about the molestation, Mr. Clark was in a rage!! He said he was going to kill me, and I knew in my heart that he would try. One day my sister, Ms. Clark and I were getting supplies for my sister to go to a Christian camp. We came home, Ms. Clark made lunch and then washed the dishes. Then Mr. Clark confronted her and told her he knew she was planning on leaving, the bank had called him. He said he would tell the court that my sister and I had broken up the home. He said we had a half and hour to pack up what we wanted and we would leave the way we came!! He also said that if anything was left behind , he would burn it!! Since Pat was packed for camp , we took her there, and Ms. Clark and I went to her oldest sons’ house. We were there about 2 wks and at their urging, she finally spoke again to Mr. Clark. He told her he had cancer of the spine, so Ms. Clark decided to put us back into Foster care, and she went back to him. She later said she always regretted that decision! So, away we went! We went to live with my pastor for a few days and then went to live with a young couple That didn’t work, I was 16 and VERY beautiful! Eventually my sister and I went to different foster homes, and were never together again. Pat had tons of trouble, she got into fights, she hurt herself. Something, I would find out later, was very wrong with my little sister.

I went on in life loving Jesus! I don’t know how I would have lived without HIM!! I can’t tell you how grateful I am to Billy Graham who introduced me to my Spiritual Father. Jesus has been everything to me! He is a mighty, awesome Lord and I am so glad I heard Billy Graham 39 years ago!